US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2475

WASHINGTON -- President Obama on Monday will announce a series of measures designed to reduce obstacles facing former prisoners reintegrating into society, including an executive order directing federal employers to delay asking questions about a job applicant's criminal history until later in the application process.

Many states, cities and private employers have already taken steps to "ban the box," which refers to the checkbox on employment applications asking if the applicant has ever been convicted of a crime. However, some federal employers and contractors still ask the question. Obama's executive order will apply to federal employers, but not to contractors.

Civil rights activists have urged Obama to propose the measure, noting that such questions can limit the ability for people with a criminal record to gain employment and get their lives back on track after prison. Advocates argue that those formerly in prison should be allowed to prove their qualifications for a job instead of being eliminated early in the process due to their criminal background.

The issue has come up on the campaign trail, with all three Democratic presidential candidates pledging support for a "ban the box" policy.

Obama will also announce other initiatives designed to improve rehabilitation and re-entry for former inmates, including education and housing grants, as well as partnerships between local municipalities and private companies that would provide jobs and training in technology.

On November 03 2015 00:22 oneofthem wrote:
well my judgement on newton vs einstein was just by looking at the two systems devised. newton's main work was on bodies in motion, which although revolutionary at the time is more of a work of technical cleverness. einstein's total envisioning is more rare of a quality, but maybe that was only made because of the state of the prior works, i.e. maxwell em vs newtonian mechanics.

On November 03 2015 00:48 ticklishmusic wrote:
Some people have more potential than others innately, but in the vast majority of cases the amount of noise generated by their surroundings obscures our ability to measure it I think. There's a quote I like from John Steinbeck's East of Eden about how you can't make a pig a racehorse, but you can make a very fast pig. The opposite is also true I guess.

Isn't there some guy with like a bajillion IQ (using that as a proxy for intelligence) who lives on a farm in the Midwest and hasn't really changed humanity?

It's a social judgement that makes people consider that being good at chess or resolving a math problem is a way to judge the intelligence, or that even having eidetic memory is a proof of intelligence. But it is only one of the dimension that we, in our daily life, consider as "intelligence".
Nash was schizophrenic, had difficult to interact with people in a "normal" manner - it is also part of intelligence, and in this regard he was completly stupid - while, as I pointed out before, trisomic people tend to have genius level of empathy. If intelligence is the capacity to adapt to information and situation, then one must agree that there are different kind of intelligence, and judging who is more intelligent between two people is like comparing orange and apple.

Republican presidential candidates have agreed a series of demands that would give them greater control of debates, as the party’s frustrated 2016 class works to inject changes into the nominating process.

They are attempting to wrestle command from the Republican National Committee (RNC) and media hosts.

Representatives from more than a dozen campaigns met behind closed doors for nearly two hours on Sunday night in suburban Washington, a meeting that was not expected to yield many results given the competing interests of several candidates. Yet they emerged having agreed several changes to be outlined in a letter to debate hosts in the coming days.

A copy of the letter drafted by GOP lawyer Ben Ginsberg and given to the Washington Post on Sunday gives an idea of some of the stipulations that the candidates are hoping to make.

They include automatic rebuttals if a candidate is mentioned; a lack of yes/no or hand-raising style questions; and a ban on reaction shots of the audience.

The letter, which is written “on behalf of the 14 Republican presidential campaigns”, also asks for a commitment to not use shots from behind the candidates showing their notes; not to leave microphones on during breaks; and asks that the temperature in the hall be kept below 67 degrees.

“The amazing part for me was how friendly the meeting was,” candidate Ben Carson’s campaign manager Barry Bennett, who hosted the meeting, said. “Everybody was cordial. We all agreed we need to have these meetings more regularly.”

The most recent Republican presidential debate, moderated by cable TV channel CNBC in Boulder, Colorado, on Wednesday night, drew harsh criticism from campaigns and Republican party officials. Afterward, some candidates complained the questions were not substantive enough; others wanted more air time or the chance to deliver opening and closing statements.

On November 03 2015 01:39 oneofthem wrote:
newton vs einstein is kinda like von neumann vs grothendieck. i have a bias for higher lvl imagination

Republican presidential candidate and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush wants everyone to know he is one tough cookie. He told Bloomberg News on Saturday that he eats nails when he wakes up — and then has breakfast.

Bush was campaigning in Des Moines, Iowa over the weekend — along with GOP rival Sen. Marco Rubio (FL).

Bush said he has "enough humility" to know he has to get better in his campaign. His struggling bid for the presidency resulted in a downsizing of his staff and slashing of his payroll. His campaign's chief operating officer, Christine Ciccone, also resigned.

Bloomberg asked Bush if people were underestimating his ability to make a comeback in the GOP race.

"They don't know me. They don't know me," Bush told Bloomberg. "I eat nails when I wake up, then I have breakfast."

Bush also discussed his performance at the CNBC debate Wednesday and noted that he "felt it wasn't that good" because he didn't get to ask the right questions and didn't interrupt his opponents.

On November 02 2015 21:25 corumjhaelen wrote:
So Einstein was smarter than Newton because he managed to conciliate two theories that Newton didn't know of because one was devised a century and a half after him and he was busy inventing the very other ?

On November 03 2015 02:16 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Jeb! has officially become a character of his former self, and that's saying a lot:



Source

In an interview that aired on Sunday, Jeb Bush said that he was unaware of a PowerPoint presentation his aides put together raising questions about his rival, Senator Marco Rubio, volunteered that he’d “kill” for his father, and said he has questions about the use of the death penalty.